Last week, we shared an exciting event, Vancouver Startup Weekend and as expected, after attending, it was a very full 54-hours of creativity, innovation, collaboration and a whole lot of hustle that occurred at Emily Carr University of Art + Design on Granville Island in Vancouver, including 150 participants plus a group of facilitators, organizers and many volunteers on site, this past weekend.

On Friday night, Joey Aquino and Brett Nakatsu from Startup Weekend kicked off the event, with a room buzzing; you could tell that every single person was ready to get going with pitching and working on their fresh ideas. Following their introductions, two keynote speakers took the stage including Thomas Lewis, Principal Technical Evangelist, of Microsoft and Matt Mickiewicz, co-Founder of SitePoint, 99designs and Flippa. Both shared their personal journeys and how they got started in the startup world along with providing some key tips such as spending time with your spouse in order not to neglect the important relationship in your lives, continuing to exercise to stay healthy, to name a few. That evening, Matt tweeted a recent article on Why The Next Big Thing Won't Come From A Fortune 500 Company. Matt touched on similar ideas during his talk similarly to this article, "Questioning the status quo, cutting costs, eliminating hassles, bypassing middle-men, and removing fees certainly go a long way. But being naïve, clueless or wildly--and perhaps inappropriately--ambitious also helps." After two more ice breakers, 63 participants had a chance to pitch their ideas within a 60-second alloted time. 17 ideas were chosen by the attendees using sticky notes as a voting process. Whichever had the most got picked.